BREAKING NEWS: Barnet Homes announce termination of outsourced Mears Housing repairs service and domestic gas service

Austerity, Barnet Homes, Local, News, Solidarity, Uncategorised, UNISON Campaign

BREAKING NEWS: Barnet Homes announce termination of outsourced Mears Housing repairs service and bring back domestic gas service

The following announcement was made to all Barnet Homes staff on Wednesday, 9 October 2019

“From 1 April 2020, the Barnet Homes repairs service, currently provided by contractors Mears, will be brought in-house. This means that Barnet Homes will be responsible for repairs in tenants’ homes, refurbishing void properties and repairs to communal parts on our estates.

The domestic gas service will continue to be managed by Mears until 1 October 2020, when it will also be transferred into Barnet Homes and run as an in-house service.”

“This is fantastic news. Housing repairs was one of the first contracts to be outsourced by Barnet Homes. Housing repairs is a critical service and should not have ever been outsourced. Housing repairs was originally delivered by Barnet Council (and should return back there) after which it was first outsourced to Barnet Homes then sold off to Connaughts which became bankrupt. The service was handed on to Lovells and finally to Mears. Looking after council tenants needs to be under the direct control of the Council. This is a welcome first step to that end. The role of Council Housing needs to be seen just as important as Family Services in addressing the brutality of child poverty. All Councils must learn lessons from Grenfell and accept Housing is a human right and as such should be provided directly by the Council.” John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON.

“TUPE or not TUPE” that is the stressful question for our outsourced ISS Catering workers

Austerity, Local, News, UNISON Campaign

Barnet Council have moved the majority of their workforce to the new £50 million office in Colindale earlier this year.

The plan was to transfer the current staff working in the canteen in North London Business Park (NLBP) to work in a Costa Coffee shop in new office in Colindale.

Barnet UNISON represents all the Catering staff who were going to be transferred to the new café.

Unfortunately, news broke that this transfer is not taking place and no agreement could be reached between Barnet Council, Cambridge Education (Mott MacDonald) and ISS.

The news has brought stress and uncertainty to a group of low paid catering workers who were assured before the outsourcing from the Council that their jobs would not be at risk.

Three years after the outsourcing the staff are now possibly at risk of redundancy or being transferred to another employer.

This uncertainty is yet another example of the brutality of Austerity and the dangers of outsourcing,

Time and time again Barnet UNISON is having to organise workers who are facing serous cuts to their terms and conditions as a result of being outsourced.

Barnet UNISON has written to Barnet Council, Cambridge Education (Mott MacDonald) seeking a meeting to discuss the future of these workers.

Barnet UNISON is calling on the Council to set up their own café in the Colindale office and employ our members to run it.

 

 

 

 

Our grave concerns about Barnet Council “Mind the gap” depot.

Austerity, H&S, Health and Safety, Local, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

Barnet UNISON read with dismay the following report entitled “Oakleigh Depot Remedial Works” which is going to Policy and Resources Committee on Thursday 3 October 2019.

(Source: https://barnet.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s55442/Oakleigh%20Depot%20Remedial%20Works.pdf

What’s it all about?

The issue of subsidence was noted by Barnet UNISON from the moment we moved into Oakleigh depot in August 2017.

The report which is going to Policy and Resources Committee does not reference the significant involvement of Capita.

Capita Property & Infrastructure Ltd (“Capita”) provided the following report entitled: The “Oakleigh Road South Depot Phase 2 Ground Investigation & Assessment April 2015 report” and the “Soil Stabilisation report dated 1 February 2017”.

Here are the two key documents

Barnet UNISON has over the last 18 months attempted to work with Council officials to ensure safe working at the depot. However once the crack opened up across the road and the fuel tank area was splitting from the pavement, management stopped sharing vital information.

Below is a summary of UNISON requests for information.

  • August 2017. UNISON raised concerns over the sufficiency of reinforcement measures to prevent ground movement at the depot.

The Council responded that it did not believe that the reinforcement was insufficient.

  • March 2018. At a meeting with the Council UNISON asked if the Council had investigated the problem and what plans had been made for repairs. We asked for the surveyor’s report which the Council had commissioned.

We were given details on the plans for repairs and have not yet received a surveyor’s report.

  • July 2018. UNISON submitted an Inspection report for the depot which identified that the rifts in the surface had widened and deepened and extended over a larger area.

The report included a request for the relevant surveyor’s reports and asked what contingency plans for the service were in place if vehicles were prevented from using the depot should repair works be needed.

We received neither the surveyor’s report nor any information on a contingency plan

  • September 2018. At a meeting with the Council, UNISON repeated our request for a surveyor’s report.
  • January 2019. Following another UNISON inspection of the depot which noted that the fissures and subsidence had not been repaired the Council’s response was that the situation was being monitored and there was no imminent danger. UNISON requests for details of the monitoring where not met.

 

What does the “Oakleigh Depot Remedial Works” report say?

In paragraph 1.10 it states “With health and safety a priority…….” and in paragraph 3.1 it states: “Officer have been unable to identify options that have no, or lesser, impact on service. The option to do nothing was discounted due to health and safety risk.”

In paragraph 5.5.1 refers to an “Environment risk register” it goes on add “To manage health and safety risk, the council’s health and safety lead is reviewing proposals alongside operational staff. Additional health and safety capacity will be brought in if and when required.”

The reason for our grave concerns is that Barnet UNISON was unaware of any Health and Safety risks at the depot because someone in the Council had made a decision not to share this information. This shocking revelation that there are health and safety risks raises serious questions marks as to who decided not to share information with the trade unions.

Health and Safety legislation is very clear:

“Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations, 1977.Regulation 7 Inspection of documents and provision of information.

(1)       Safety representatives shall for the performance of their functions under section 2(4) of the 1974 Act and under these Regulations, if they have given the employer reasonable notice, be entitled to inspect and take copies of any document relevant to the workplace or to the employees the safety representatives represent which the employer is required to keep by virtue of any relevant statutory provision within the meaning of section 53(1) of the 1974 Act except a document consisting of or relating to any health record of an identifiable individual.”

Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974

“2 (6) It shall be the duty of every employer to consult any such representatives with a view to the making and maintenance of arrangements which will enable him and his employees to co-operate effectively in promoting and developing measures to ensure the health and safety at work of the employees, and in checking the effectiveness of such measures.”

Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations, 1977. Regulation 4A

“(1) Without prejudice to the generality of section 2(6) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, every employer shall consult safety representatives in good time with regard to – (a) the introduction of any measure at the workplace which may substantially affect the health and safety of the employees the safety representatives concerned represent;”

In light of the publication of the above report Barnet UNISON wrote to all three authors of the Council “Oakleigh Depot Remedial Works” report.

We have made the following demands:

  1. All reports/documents in relation to the ‘crack’ which identify health and safety issues are provided to the trade unions by the end of the week, including all data relating to ground movement.
  2. A weekly update meeting to take place at the depot with the trade union health and safety reps.

Failure to provide the information above will mean Barnet UNISON has no option but to contact the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

View reports click on links below

CH-SSP-UK-MGridEG-Oakleigh Road South Depot-Rev 01 Feb 17

15_04005_FUL-SITE_INVESTIGATION_REPORT-3112004 (1) (1)

 

 

Barnet Care Workers deserve the London Living Wage

Austerity, Barnet Group, Barnet Homes, Local, TBG Flex, UNISON Campaign

Thursday 19th September Barnet UNISON wrote to The Barnet Group asking when the London Living Wage would be applied to the colleagues who transferred in from Fremantle Group.

As soon as we heard these workers were to be transferred into the Group we made it clear to the new employer that we wanted this for the care workers. The work these colleagues do is demanding and is a skilled job yet these workers receive rates of pay which are often only just above the National Minimum Wage (£8.21/ hr). Few workers are receiving rates of pay higher than the London Living Wage (Team Leaders for example).

We were very proud that our outsourced cleaners working in Barnet Council offices now earn the London Living Wage so the care workers must now receive at least the same wage.

In fact the ex-Fremantle workers are not the only care workers in the Barnet Group who receive less than the London Living Wage. The Barnet Group describes itself as a “London Living Wage” employer but unfortunately cannot retain this title so long as so many colleagues earn so much less.

“Caring for vulnerable people is a skilled job and should be recognised as such. There is no way care workers should be paid less than shelf stackers and cleaners. No one deserves less than the London Living Wage. We expect The Barnet Group and Barnet Council to pay this as an absolute minimum.” Helen Davies, Chair, Barnet UNISON.

“Barnet Group cannot be allowed to continue paying below the London Living Wage to these care workers, some of whom were council staff before they were “outsourced” to Fremantle, who attacked their pay and Terms and Conditions remorselessly. The Barnet Group is solely owned by Barnet Council and should fulfil the Councils commitment to the London living wage.” Patrick Hunter Barnet UNISON Convenor for Barnet Homes. 

“Everyone agrees that care workers are undervalued, overworked and unpaid. In Barnet we have had an agreement for several years that no staff would earn less than the London Living Wage (LLW) and in the event staff were outsourced the contractor must make the same commitment that no staff working on a Barnet contract must earn less than the LLW. Earlier this year Barnet Council honoured this agreement by ensuring contracted out cleaners were on the LLW. I am calling on Barnet Council and The Barnet Group (TBG) to ‘do the right thing’ and announce that all care workers working for TBG are upgraded to at least the LLW.” John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON.

More to follow……………………..

Good News! – Pay Cut for Adoption Workers Stopped

Austerity, News, Solidarity, UNISON Campaign

North London Business Park, Unison workers go on strike
29/04/15 BP
Credit: Anne-Marie Sanderson

You may recall that a group of workers were due to be TUPE transferred to the North London Regional Adoption Agency at the start of this month. Shockingly they were informed at the last moment that if they transferred they would lose their Recruitment and Retention payment. This was after being part of the work done to deliver a good Ofsted rating. The Council argued this was not part of their terms and conditions. This would have meant a pay cut of 15%! Only when our union stepped in with legal advice to say they would take a court case on this if the Council went ahead, did the Senior Management back down and now these workers will transfer with their usual wages including the R&R.
It is unlawful to inflict a detriment on workers changing their terms and conditions due to a TUPE transfer. This was absolutely the line our Family Services Senior Management were pursuing.
It pays to be in a trade union. These workers went through a difficult time for several weeks and months not knowing what their income was going to become or where they would end up working. However, they stuck it out and acted together patiently waiting for positive news which did in fact come.
Solidarity to those workers!

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